No, not the U.S. President. That would be President Chavez in Venezuela.
Resonating with the Kos frontpage swipe at hippies and "anti-war" types (I wonder how comfortable Kos would be defending his chest-thumping position agains the likes of such principled anti-warriors as Howard Zinn, btw) the Chavez news has brought to the fore yet another center/left split here on DKos.
While admittedly some Chavez defenders seem to neither know nor care much about the long history of El Presidente, and go overboard in their groupie like embrace of him, detractors have offered little more than standard anti-leftist cant in their attempts to solidify their "i'm left, but not
that left" credentials as "serious and rational" members of the civilized left (nevermind the fact that the moderate left in this nation is indeed the center-right virtually everywhere else on this earth).
That said, let's briefly examine one aspect of Chavez to see why most everyone around the world would find American criticism of Chavez as "dictatorial" to be preciously hypocritical.
First, the context. Chavez has a weekly TV show called "Aló, Presidente!" where he travels around, meets with citizens, takes phone calls, and offers speeches explaining himself and his policies (sometimes for hours on end).
Recently, Chavez took this opportunity to do something we can not even fathom happening here.
According to a report that Julio Montes, the Minister of Housing and Habitat, presented, only 43,000 homes had been constructed so far this year, while the government's goal is to construct at least 120,000. Chavez said, "This will not do, with all due respect, this is not the way. ...but at this speed we will not even reach the corner."
Chavez went on to say that the most common letters the president's office receives are requests for housing. "I am supremely disappointed with myself and my government on this subject and the first responsibility is mine. I am giving time to see the results, but the signs are bad," said Chavez.
This is not to say Chavez is a perfect man, nor that his policies or methods are all just. Rather, it is a plea to those moderates to re-examine their reflexive anti-leftism and to place it within a more global context. That is to say, with even a slight widening of perspective, it becomes evident that the "mainstream" so craved by centrists is not where they are swimming, globally speaking. Moreover, the neo-Marxist rhetoric that so often is the target of swift vilification among the centrist wing (U.S. is imperialist; U.S. military exploits are often examples of terrorist aggression; the interests of the masses must come before profits; etc. etc.), is in fact the narrative that is in ascension, not the soft-shoed namby pamby liberalism that cloaks itself in "pragmatism and respectibility" and operates as a strict orthodoxy among the elites of the Democratic Party and many here at DailyKos as well.